Graham for Beep?

As Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz considers a run for mayor in 2009, an interesting undercard race is shaping up for the office he is vacating. It’s well known that city councilmen Bill de Blasio and Charles Barron have an eye on the beep’s office. A third contender could be Deputy Borough President Yvonne Graham.

Graham, who is originally from Jamaica, is participating in a Caribbean Heritage celebration in Brooklyn today, one of several similar appearances that seem designed to raise her profile around the borough.

Of course, Graham has a long way to go before she matches the ribbon-cutting prowess of Markowitz. In an interview, she said no one should read too much into her heightened visibility. “Actually I’ve worked with diverse cultures ever since I landed in this country in 1979,” she said. When asked directly whether she was planning to run for the borough presidency, she replied: "Well, I haven’t ruled out anything.”

“I have not yet made a decision,” she added, “and that’s all the information I have at this time.”

One issue I'm sure voters will be reminded of when the campaigning starts in earnest are the different positions the candidates took on renaming a portion of Gates Avenue after the controversial black activist Sonny Carson. De Blasio voted against, but Barron strongly supported it, and his chief of staff, Viola Plummer, went so far as to call for the assassination of one of the measure’s opponents. The whole matter came up at City Hall again today, when Council Speaker Christine Quinn told reporters that she had not yet decided whether or not to suspend or otherwise punish Plummer.

“Comments were made of a nature that have never been made before by a city employee …Thank goodness,” Quinn said, according to the Daily Politics. “They raise complicated employment matters."

Graham is staying far away from the Carson dust-up. She told me in our interview she has “no position at this time” on the matter.